Thailand!

This morning I cycled back to the ferry on Langkawi, took it and once I reached Kuala Perlis it was almost noon and the sun was hot. instead of going straight through the border and stoping for one day in Thailand, I preferred to stay one more night in Malaysia where I don’t have to rush on my visa. Likewise, in my first day in Thailande I will make some good distance already. I will be granted 30 days of staying and I will be able to get a renewal of 30 more days once in Bangkok if needed. It’s a total of two months which should be way enough.

Seeing Thailand from Malaysia, last day on Langkawi

03/04/2017 – The border

trip dist: 91.85kmtime: 5h19total:10798km

I started to cycle at 6.30am and after 35km and an easy military checkpoint, I went through the Thai border! Nothing easier than that. I arrived they took me to a little office and like in an airport they check arrival card that I just filled in, took a photo of my face, and checked my fingerprints and that was it. 1 month stay allowed! If you plan to enter Thailand from Malaysia, the border checkpoint I went through was Padang Besar. it is open 24h non stop. be sure to know an address in Thailand beforehand. I just found a hotel in the first city near the border and wrote it down. They asked me how long I wanted to stay, I said three weeks and I had my fake flight ticket ready but they didn’t even bothered me with it. So, it was super easy, super fast, and free!

One of many temples on my way

04/04/2017 – first night in a temple

trip dist: 108.47kmtime: 6h03total: 10906km

My alarm went off at 6am. I heard the noise of the heavy rain on the roof and felt asleep again. I needed it. While it was raining, I put my new bar tapes because my old ones went off and my hands started to be very rough on it. it’s sooo comfortable now. a little thing can change everything. I started to cycle from 10am and kept going until 7pm, the humidity in the air is way better than the last 3 countries I crossed which makes the ride way better!! I’ve been camping almost all the time in New Zealand and Australia but in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia almost never. it was too crowded and I needed a shower every night to remove liters of sweat. In addition, the price of the hostels was very low all over South East Asia.

I guess when you don’t practice anymore some things that you were comfortable with, your comfort zone retracts. It’s like a muscle that you must train all the time to keep it strong. I decided to train it again in Thailand, it should be easy as I heard that you can stop in any temple. Well, I tried a temple right by the water and they told me to go somewhere behind a wall. I’ll have a roof over my head and will sleep in my tent with the sounds of the sea as a background.

Having a roof over my head to avoid heavy rains… it didn’t rain

currently there is an alert about heavy rain on southern Thailand with a lot of floodings everywhere.

I loved to be sleeping outside again. It’s some time with myself and without internet to distract me. I can find my routine from the Australian desert.

05/04/2017 – rain, rain and rain again

trip dist:89.01kmtime:4h45total dist:10995km

So last night I slept for the first time at a buddhist temple. The monk told me to go sleeping in a building where I think there is usually events organised like night markets. I had a roof over my head to sleep dry. It actually didn’t rain that night. In the morning I woke up feeling sick with a very sore throat and the rain started at 6am so I kept sleeping until 8am at 8.30am, I started to cycle with rain clothes on. All my clothes were still wet from yesterday. The rain is pretty heavy and the road is flooded at many places. That’s the first time in my life that I saw crabs crossing the highway. There was many of them.

It will never stop to rain until I found a hostel were I’ll be able to clean and dry my clothes in the sink of the bathroom. Believe it or not, I’m cold, even if outside it’s still 25°C it’s been three days that I’m wearing wet clothes. I hope this rain will stop at some point. Hopefully tomorrow morning I’ll be able to cycle under the sun. For now I will try to keep warm and work on my website thenomadwolf.com check it out if you don’t know what it is. I’m selling inspirational outdoor and adventure photographies from different photographers around the world.

08/04/2017 – such a day!

Trip dist: 144.96km

Time: 6h07

Total Distance: 11140km

This morning, I took my time as it was still raining until 9am after the forecast. Starting at 9am under a very light rain which stopped not long time after. To check the weather conditions I use WindyTv. It’s an app and a website to get the forecast of winds, rain, clouds, temperature…. all over the world. I started to use this app when sailing and I keep using it for cycling as it is the best app so far to predict very precisely the forecast hour per hour for the wind, rain, temp, waves, clouds… Pretty amazing to play it strategic with the natural conditions. I’m actually thinking of writing an article about it.

Valve ripped off!

I had tail wind pretty much all day and this helped me to keep a 25km/h pace pretty much all the time except for a climb where I came down to 8km/h for a little while. After 120km, around 3:30pm I stopped to get my first food of the day as I was starting to feel dizzy. I connected to the wifi of the restaurant and received a message from Ann (@Mairawa) saying that Tomasz and her were still in the next city as they took a day off. Great! 24 more km and I will finally meet them after all that time!

Finally we met!!

That day, the only time it rained was when I was eating inside. I got pretty lucky even though I’ve got a puncture, the first one since Singapore! I removed the tube and try to find the reason, any spikes… then checked inside the tyre… nothing. I didn’t understand until I tried to pump the tube and realised that the valve was actually ripped off. First time it happened. I fixed it quickly by putting a new tube and kept on cycling.

Today’s podcasts were great! On many I’ve been listening two of them were awesome:

First one, a Tim Ferriss Show with Scott Adams, the man behind Dilberts. I really wanted to listen to this podcast after I’ve been reading the chapter about him in Tools of Titans, the last book of Tim Ferriss. I loved it so much in the book that I almost highlighted the whole chapter. And it is actually one of the longest one of the book providing a lot useful keys and techniques. Here is the podcast it’s two hours of greatness:

The second one is a podcast from NPR, called How I Build This, interviewing successful brand or products creators on their success. This time it was with Haim Saban, the man who created a lot of cartoons musics like Inspector Gadget but as well imported the power rangers from Japan to the rest of the world, which made him one of the richest man on the planet. This guy is just amazing and very funny to listen. It’s a 45 minutes episode and I totally recommend it:

09/04/17 – second night in a temple

trip dist: 97.16kmtime:5h12total dist:11238kmtwo nights ago I met Ann and Tomasz in Surat Thani. We spent the evening together and recorded a podcast. then we wanted to exchange some tips about China for me and Australia for her but it was already midnight. We took a day off on the 8th of April and took the time to exchange all of our respective informations about the countries we each crossed. This morning we agreed that we gonna start at 9am. That’s what made me realised that after 6 days in Thailand I was on the wrong time. It was one hour earlier than I had it setup on my phone. No sim card means no automatic update for the phone.

So we started at 8am to take some photographs together to illustrate the podcast and for Instagram as well. then we decided to go to have a coffee and breakfast before to split.

I started to cycle at around 9am real time this time and today was a great day! first, it didn’t rain at all it was even sunny, but the best thing ever… even after a week of rain and now some sun, the air didn’t feel that humid. is it because I’m on a narrow part or is the humidity behind me? I prefer to believe the second option but I think it is more likely to be the first one…

the ride was good even under the sun, even with 36.4°C. I really enjoyed the ride today even though I had head wind all the time.

After 70km I checked a beach where I could have stayed but it was still just 3pm and Instead I decided to keep going until the sunset. Then, I saw a sign for a hot spring… this reminded me what Alex from Belarus told me. there is hot springs and a temple nearby, and it seems that it was the one. I came to the temple, a lot of dogs came to me barking, then a monk. I asked if I could sleep there for the night. as the monk didn’t speak in english I showed him a letter I translated to Thai explaining my project and asking if I could stay here for the night. he asked to his “superior” and it was ok. I asked for the hot springs but we didn’t understand each other. so he called another monk who speaks english. He told me they are closed at this time. They showed me where to stay, a room with aircon and I had access to a pipe to take a shower! Luxury! We spoke quite a bit with Charin the monk who spoke english, and actually a little bit of french too. It was a great exchange and he told me that I can go to any temple in Thailand and stay for the night.

With Charin, so grateful to met him on my way!

A bit later as I was eating my cherry tomatoes he came and asked me if I was hungry. He offered me noodles, a tomato juice box, a water bottle, two bananas and two mangoes. while I was eating we chat again for a good hour. It was really interesting and I learned a bit about monks. I’m feeling bad to not know anything about it. Next time I have internet I will search about it. So he got a 27 years old daughter studying international business in Bangkok. I think I understood that he is a monk since 5 years. His dream in his twenties was to cycle around the world..he never did it and now he thinks he is too old for it but we never really are too old for anything. He showed me pictures of every bike tourers who came and stayed in the temple, then he taught me a bit of Thai so I can speak better 🙂

Look at that shooting star I got!!

I love how unexpected is life and now that the weather is dryer I start again to extend my comfort zone by not planning anything where I will sleep at night. just letting the chance working for me. IT’s always whe nI don’t have any plan that I end up in the most amazing places with wonderful people.

I’m now really tired. I will stretch and then sleep tight!

The temple at night lighted by the full moon… Beautiful!

10/04/2017 – A long hot day

trip dist: 93.97kmtime: 5h18total: 11332km

Before I left, Charin came to me and offered me a lot of food again for the road. We took some photographs together and I hit the road. After all that rain it feels good to cycle under the sun again. Yesterday I thought that the humidity was behind me but I was wrong. It is still there. As long as I keep cycling it’s ok it creates a nice airflow around me and keeps me fresh but today, no wind… and the sun was very very hot.

Look at those clouds!!!

At lunch I setup the hammock and ate on a deserted beach then felt asleep and sunburnt my chest and belly. I pushed hard to finish the day but at least, the road was following the coast and there was no cars no noise, just nature. Such a great feeling that I haven’t found in South East Asia since a very long time. I slept at a motel pretty cheap and still pretty good.

11/04/2017 – day off, kind of…

trip dist. : 41.80kmtime: 2h10total: 11 373kmWaking up took time this morning even though I opened my eyes at 6.30am, my body didn’t want to work. no problem, I should listen more to my body so I decided to get a day off today. Anyway, I need to make a laundry, fix my pedal which is squeaking a lot, buy some chain lube, find a new charger for my camera as mine doesn’t work anymore, go to a bank to get some cash out and avoid the 200 baht tax on each ATM…

Where I stayed last night wouldn’t be very useful as there is nothing around so I decided to cycle the 40km to Chumphon, a big city. By 3pm everything was done except for the camera charger because there is no camera shop in this city.

for the bike, I came in a shop and today the mechanic was away. So i asked them if I could just use their tools to fix my bike and they gave me access to the tools. I felt like at home.

Fixing my pedal in a bike shop for free 🙂

it’s so hot during the day now that I’m thinking of cycling at night again.

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I received a new toy for Christmas thanks to @jobesup ! Didn't have the time to try it much but here it is for my first time on the water with this big boy! It's a touring SUP 11"6' so it looks like next summer I'll be exploring on water!! First pic by @marionpass

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Have you ever seen white peaks like this with the sea as a background?

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Good night world! Tomorrow will start the Images et Neige festival where there will be some never ever published photographs of the New Zealand Alps... stay tuned I'll share some in here soon! #advancedselfie

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